School Notes: School of Art
May/June 2017

Critic will be 2018 Visiting Fellow

Multimedia artist and critic in photography A. L. Steiner will be the 2018 Yale Presidential Visiting Fellow in Fine Arts within the Department of Photography. Steiner’s approach to pedagogy emphasizes a fundamental way of being a cultural producer. A lesbian feminist–identified artist and activist, her work spans photography, video, installation, collage, performance, lectures, writing, and curating to address social, economic, and environmental positions.

Steiner’s practice explores the relationship to archival forms, authenticating experiences through photographic documents and addressing what is inherent to subjectivity, feminism, and queer history. In her work, personal biography meets the lives of others, telling stories through the constructions, fragilities, temporalities, and ambiguities of image-worlds.

Marta Kuzma, dean of the School of Art, notes the significance of the appointment: “Steiner will contribute to fostering the necessary conversations around what may be at stake for the practicing artist who grapples with a complex and regressive social, political, and economic landscape. She will undoubtedly create substantive pedagogical exchanges, unraveling what she has referred to as the ‘interconnected and dependent conditions which lead to decision-making processes.’” Professor Gregory Crewdson, director of the school’s Department of Photography, notes that Steiner “brings a powerful point of view and unique voice, particularly in the areas of gender, sexual politics, radicalism, and agency. Her art and sensibility crosses mediums and genres and defies expectations.”

Steiner has been a critic in photography at the School of Art since 2016. She has held academic appointments at Bard College, Columbia University, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the School of Visual Arts, among others. Her works have won numerous awards and reside in museum collections around the world.